JFDI

One of the cool things about going to MIT is having the entire month of January off (Independent Activities Period, IAP) to pursue side interests.  The reality is that these “side” interests are actually the main course for most first-year students at MIT Sloan business school.  If I had to guess the breakdown for how the class spent its time this month, I’d say it was close to the following:

• 60% on-campus interviews with consulting firms, banks, or fortune 500 companies
• 20% externships at relatively small companies hoping to parlay that into summer internships
• 15% traveling abroad or going home abroad to see family/friends
• 5% pursuing actual side interests by taking not-for-credit courses offered by MIT faculty and students

I fall into this last group, as I took a bunch of web programming classes on PHP, HTML, CSS, etc.  One class provided a great overview on the semantic web, which is all about linking data on the back-end of various websites to provide even more relevant results on the front-end.  A highlight included a talk by Tim Berners-Lee, founder of the World Wide Web.  Hell, I also dropped $200 on programming books from Amazon.  I know what you’re thinking -this doesn’t sound like much of a winter vacation- so let me explain…

You see, I left my gig in management consulting (@ Mars&Co) last year for one reason, and one reason only – to start a company in the Web/IT space.  Of course there was just one little problem:  I had no idea what this startup would be.  Lucky for me, I was accepted to MIT  with the hope that when the “big idea” came, I would have the resources available to make it a success.  Well, that idea has come, and taking advantage of these IAP courses was the first step.

The truth is my IAP spent on web programming may not have been as fun or interesting as an externship at a hot startup (or traveling around Southeast Asia for that matter).  But I know I made the right decision because the knowledge I have gained will help lay the foundation for doing what I came here to do.  I may not ever be able to build a compelling website from scratch, but if I need to outsource or interact with a programmer, I’m ready.